Many food products and beverages have unpleasant, undesired taste, which is often mainly related to excess bitterness or sourness. Because the taste of the product plays an essential role when determining the final acceptance by the consumer, efforts have been made to mask or diminish the unpleasant taste. Some examples of products that have unpleasant, bitter or sour taste are e.g. beverages, such as fruit and vegetable juices, coffee, tea, cocoa and chocolate products, soy products and cereal products, especially soy and cereal based drinks, fermented products, such as yoghurts and fermented soy products. The unpleasant taste is often more pronounced in low viscosity products than in products having higher viscosity. The products mentioned above are currently consumed in increasing amounts.
Various methods have been used to mask the unpleasant taste. A commonly used method is to mask the unpleasant taste by enhancing the sweetness of the product. This is usually achieved by adding extra sugar or other sweetening agents. In most cases, this imparts additional calories into the products and truly low calorie products cannot be formulated by using this approach. Food industry has currently put a lot of emphasis on developing products with low carbohydrate content, especially with low sugar and other absorbable carbohydrate content. These so called “low carb” or lowered GI (Glycemic Index) products are marketed for e.g. weight control purposes. However, the need of masking the bitter, astringent or sour taste also in these low carb products still remains, and it has been done e.g. by using artificial sweetening agents. Although these low-calorie or non-calorie artificial sweetening agents bring only few or not at all extra calories to the product, some of them, e.g. saccharin and Acesulfame-K have bitter off-taste themselves. In addition, there are many regulatory restrictions in usage of the above mentioned sweetening agents, e.g. their use is allowed only in a limited range of products and in limited amounts. Also the safety of some of these products is still under debate, and for example consumption of aspartame should be avoided by phenylketonuric individuals. The increasing number “low carb” products on the market may lead to increased consumption of artificial sweetening agents and thus the accepted daily intake limits of these sweetening agents are exceeded more easily. Truly low carbohydrate or low sugar products with good taste characteristics and with no increased amounts of artificial sweetening agents are thus not easily formulated.
The sugar most often used to mask undesired tastes is sucrose, and reducing the amount of it is therefore the most preferred embodiment of the invention. Also fructose and fructose syrups are very common and often preferred because of their stronger relative sweetness compared to sucrose. In the past, fructose was considered to be a better choice than sucrose or glucose, especially for people having diabetes mellitus, because fructose digestion results in smaller postprandial glycemic and insulin excursions than glucose. However, more recently fructose has been found to be a contributor to many diseases, such as manifestations of the insulin resistance syndrome. Fructose consumption induces insulin resistance, impaired glucose tolerance, hyperinsulinemia, hypertension and hyperlipidemia, i.e. risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Consumption of fructose is also likely to lead to increased energy intake, weight gain and obesity. Thus added fructose is not recommended. Especially people with insulin resistance or hyperlipidemia should not choose products sweetened with fructose. (Elliot S. S. et al., Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 76 (2002) 911). Sugar alcohols have also been used as sweetening agent, but their sweetness, and ability to mask undesired tastes, is poor compared to fructose or sucrose based ingredients. In addition to sugar and other sweetening agents, also other components have been used to mask or reduce the unpleasant taste, e.g. different kind of aromas and also certain lipid compounds or compositions containing lipids. Especially triglycerides, with high content of saturated fatty acids, are known to be effective in masking undesired taste in food products. This has been applied also in the so called “low carb” products, where the reduction of sugar and other carbohydrate sweetening agents has been compensated if not with artificial sweetening agents then e.g. with higher content of triglyceride lipids compared to regular products. However, triglycerides can have a negative effect on the nutritional characteristics of the product. Lipids also impart extra calories to the product.
The effect of plant sterols on the taste characteristics of food products has most commonly been described either as adverse or having no effect. Examples of regular products (as defined later) into which plant sterols have been added are disclosed in the following patents and patent applications: U.S. Pat. No. 6,087,353, WO 02/082929, DE 101 09 708, CN 1299619, DE 100 63 288, WO 00/41491, U.S. Pat. No. 6,441,206, U.S. 2002/0064548 and WO 01/54686.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,087,353 discloses a composition that comprises one or more esterified and subsequently hydrogenated phytosterols and is suitable for incorporation into foods, beverages, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals. Also foods and beverages comprising the composition are disclosed.
WO 02/082929 discloses food products comprising dietary fibre and plant sterol. Food products, such as fermented yoghurt-like cereal products, fermented dairy product, fruit drink, vanilla ice cream-type food and fruit musli containing elevated levels of plant sterols and dietary fibre are disclosed.
DE 101 09 708 discloses a water-soluble active agent concentrate containing phytosterol and an emulsifier such as polysorbate and a method of producing the concentrate. Beverages containing the concentrate are also claimed.
CN 1299619 discloses a protein beverage comprising phytosterol aliphatic ester.
DE 100 63 288 discloses mixed fruit, vegetable, milk and/or wine beverage containing up to 20 gal added phytosterols. The beverages are produced by adding a solution containing phytosterols and an emulsifier to a base beverage prepared from fruit, vegetables, milk or wine.
WO 00/41491 teaches that adding plant sterols into various milk or soy milk based products resulted in products that had similar texture, appearance and flavour or were substantially indistinguishable from the corresponding product compositions without added plant sterols. Thus no changes or improvements in the taste characteristics were noted.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,441,206 discloses compositions that contain the hydroxyl acid or dicarboxylic acid or amino acid esters of a phytosterol and/or phytostanol, or the mixed esters formed with alcohols, polyols or polyol (C2-C22)-fatty acid esters of dicarboxylic acids or hydroxyl acids or the (C2-C22)-fatty acid esters of hydroxyl acids and dietary fats comprising these compositions. Adding the compounds of the invention into chocolate flavoured truffles, mayonnaise, alcoholic beverage or spread did not have adverse effect on the product's taste.
U.S. 2002/0064548 describes a method for dispersing plant sterol. The method comprises steps of melting an admixture of plant sterol and an emulsifier, mixing the molten mixture with an aqueous beverage or emulsifier-containing aqueous beverage and stirring the mixture at a high speed to give a dispersion of plant sterol in a beverage. In the beverages thus obtained plant sterols are in a form of nano-sized micelles that have no influence on the characteristic taste and flavour of the beverages.
WO 01/54686 describes how the bitter taste of L-arginine is reduced by coating arginine with phytosterols. The bitter tasting component, L-arginine, is mixed with the coating material (phytosterols) in a solvent system, such as hexane and ethanol. Then the mixture is dried, e.g. spray dried, to obtain phytosterol-coated L-arginine. The bitter, fishy unpleasant taste of L-arginine is diminished by this technique.
Although the coating technique is effective in reducing the bitter or otherwise unpleasant taste, one disadvantage is the need for extra processing, e.g. drying. This makes the process both unsuitable for certain type of products and expensive.
SU 635951 introduces a method to improve the taste of canned dietetic food products containing beta-sitosterol. Taste is improved by reducing the amount of beta-sitosterol in the product.
WO 02/065845 discloses a deodorization process and a phytosterol-containing edible fat composition produced by the deodorization process. The phytosterol-containing edible fat composition produced by this process has an improved taste although it contains a sufficient amount of a phytosterol.
It is known that increasing the viscosity of the product decreases the intensity of bitter and/or sour taste. However, many products are preferred to be consumed in a liquid or low-viscosity form. There are not good methods for producing low-viscosity, low-sugar and low-fat products where bitter and/or sour tastes are well masked.
There is a growing need for healthy products with good taste and high nutritional value.
Low-fat products with reduced unpleasant or too strong tastes, such as bitterness or sourness, without increased sugar and/or calorie and/or artificial sweetening agent content are needed. Especially products with low viscosity, such as beverages, with these characteristics would be desirable. The present invention provides products meeting these requirements.